A model presents a creation during the Gretchen Jones Spring 2012 presentation during New York Fashion Week.

The Project Runway finale fashion show for Season 9 was on Friday, but whatever happened to last season’s dark-horse winner, Gretchen Jones? The Post caught up with her at her first-ever Fashion Week presentation, last Thursday, where she showed a strong collection of gorgeous Southwestern-inspired textiles and flowing printed dresses to crisp, bright separates.

Jones, a southernwest native, is now a New Yorker — “I’ve been living in Fort Greene for the about ten months,” she said.

Jones said she always designs collections around “a piece of literature and an album” — in this case, Patti Smith’s 1975 “Horses” album and the book “The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge,” a book written in the ’60s amount a shaman Native American “who used hallucinogenics to reach enlightenment.” Well, okay!

Going forward, “I think the challenge [for me] is really able to step out of the mode that got me into the place where I can [design],” she said. “I don’t consider myself like I’ve ‘made it.’ It’s really important for me to produce, time and time again, and represent that I wasn’t just a flash in the pan.”

In other words, we’ll be seeing more of Jones, and she’s not just a reality TV star anymore — this strong first presentation proved it.